Fears are growing that Burma’s army is conducting a scorched earth attack on Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine state, in revenge for the killing of nine army border guards in October by 20 militants.

Those attacks are believed to be in revenge for massive rounds of Buddhist attacks on Rohingya Muslims in 2012, including murders, rapes, and burning down villages, and for plans announced earlier this year by the government to demolish 12 mosques and 35 madrasas (religious schools) in Rakhine State because they had been built without permission.

Now satellite images published by Human Rights Watch show that Rohingya Muslim villages are again being burned down, but this time by the army. They troops had been sent to the region to prevent further violence, but instead they are conducting further violence. Over 430 buildings have been burned down.

Burma’s government is denying that the troops had anything to do with the violence, and suggested that the Rohingyas had burned down their own homes to embarrass the government, a claim that’s considered laughable. Burma’s government is adamantly refusing to allow reporters or investigators into the area to determine what really happened.

Violence grew over the weekend increased as soldiers killed dozens of Rohingyas, and forced hundreds from their homes into already overcrowded camps.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) had lived there for generations have been slaughtered and driven from their homes by Buddhists led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. The Rohingyas, described by the United Nations as “the most persecuted ethnic group in the world,” are not even recognized as Rohingyas by Burma’s government, who refer to them as Bangladeshis.

Following the massive attacks on Rohingyas by Buddhists, led by Buddhist monks, we’re seeing tit-for-tat increases of violence on both sides. With Myanmar in a generational Crisis era, this is the kind of violence that leads to civil war. Human Rights Watch and Radio Free Asia and Frontier Myanmar

Syria and Russia resume bombings of women and children in Aleppo

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, there are 275,000 people living in east Aleppo, but only about 1,000 of them members of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) which recently renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) when it cut its ties to al-Qaeda.

But now the long-expected assault on east Aleppo is finally beginning, with the apparent objective of killing as many of the 275,000 people as possible. The new Russian naval war group, led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, which has just arrived in at the coast of Syria, launched its first attacks today, sending warplanes and cruise missiles to east Aleppo, Homs and Idlib, while Syrian regime warplanes also pound Aleppo.

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad has been widely condemned in the West as a war criminal, barrel bombs, Sarin gas, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous, and other weapons on hospitals, schools and markets with no military objective except to kill as many innocent women and children as possible. Al-Assad continues in the delusional view that this will cause the residents to throw down their weapons and surrender, something that will never happen in Syria’s generational Awakening era. AP and VOA